Dark is the Descent
by The Sneaky Fox
Summary: A young girl is captured by batarian slavers in the middle of the night and forced into shadowy solitude by her captors. Yet when the lights in the ship go out and all falls silent, she is left alone to explore its bowels and becomes one of the few people to witness the gruesome beginning of the galaxy's end. Written for Aria's Afterlife October Writing Contest.


**Dark is the Descent **

Why was it so cold?

She pulled her knees more tightly to her chest, shivering. The last time she remembered being this cold, Mama's old radiator had broken last winter and they'd all huddled together on her parents' bed with a big wool blanket. But she didn't have a blanket now. Or her mom and dad.

Her lips pursed together, trying not to cry again. She'd already cried a few times, and the sound of her own sobs echoed like ghosts off the walls in her empty, dark cell. And even though her father had always told her that things like spirits and monsters didn't exist, the aliens that had taken her from her bed sure looked like the stuff of nightmares. Four big, black eyes, yucky-coloured skin, and moist palms. She shivered again.

Her tummy rumbled, and she pressed a hand to her belly button. She was hungry. The monsters had given her a dirty-looking bowl with mush in it... yesterday? She didn't know when. But you weren't supposed to eat out of dirty bowl because you could get sick, so she didn't eat it. The monsters had yelled at her and kicked the bowl, sending the mush flying across the room and splattering against the wall.

She also had to pee, but never saw a toilet when the room got lit up when the aliens came in. She didn't know where she was supposed to go, since you couldn't pee on the floor. That's just _gross_.

A metallic groan screeched to her right, and she stiffened. She peered into the dark, trying to see what was going on, but she couldn't even see her own hand. Then the large door creaked open and dim light flickered through the crack of rusty doorway.

She squished herself further into her metal corner, hoping the monsters didn't come in again. They would always scream at her in a harsh language she never understood, and hit her if she cried.

_Don't cry. Crying's for babies._

She held her breath, looking around the room. She could see some of her surroundings now—the floors were grimy and made faint sucking sounds against her shoes whenever she walked around. It was about the size of her living room, except it had no furniture or paintings on the walls. Stains covered most of the metal plating, ranging from blue to purple to red, all smelling like the dead bird she'd found in her backyard. There was a pile of blotted rags in one corner, and they sometimes looked like they were moving if the light shined on them right.

She glanced at the door again, but didn't see anyone come through. The large piece of metal simply hung off of its hinges, not closing but not opening any wider. Pressing her hands to the wall behind her, she slowly pushed herself up, careful to keep her eyes on the door. Still no one.

She took a step forward, sneakers squishing against whatever coated the floor. It was slimy and smelled bad. She took another step, stretching out her arms to balance herself and to move as quietly as possible. People in movies did it, and it always worked for them.

She crept to the door and put a hand on it, peeking out into the hallway. It was dank and grey, the same colourful rust smearing the walls of the narrow corridor. She could hear the faint drip-drip-drip of water from overhead pipes and the quiet creaks of the old ship, but no talking.

As if to spite the silence, a horrible, rending screech echoed throughout the ship, and the deck's plates rumbled beneath her feet. She gripped the edge of the door more tightly, swallowing. Another rumble rocked the ship, this one big enough to send her off her feet. She landed on the floor, feeling the gooey slime coat the back of her head and wet her hair.

"Ow ow," she whispered, clutching her elbow. It hurt and tickled at the same time, but the impact was jarring enough to make her eyes water. _Don't cry. Don't cry. Don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry—_

The ship quaked again, the metal squealing and screeching from whatever was attacking it. She sat up, grabbing the door and hoisting herself up onto her feet again. Her elbow throbbed with the movement, but she didn't want to lie on the floor; her clothes were all gooey from the slime.

Carefully placing one foot in front of the other and holding onto the door, she ventured out into the hallway. The fluorescent lights above her whined and flickered, making the stains on the walls almost look like they were moving. Her lip trembled, and she hugged herself. At the end of the hallway was more hallways, all of them dark. She didn't want to go down any of them, but also didn't want to stay here. The ship screeched again.

Taking a big breath, she pressed a hand to the wall and took a wobbly step forward. She should be brave. Dad was a soldier, and he had to be brave all the time. She tried to force herself not to be afraid, but it didn't work very well.

_Come on, chicken. Start walking._

She followed her brain's command, taking another step forward, then another. Her feet still squished against the metal and she wiped her shoes on the floor, seeing the slime smear across the deck in a crimson gelatin. It looked almost like limp Jell-O.

She reached the lip of the hallway, standing at the crossroads in front of her. Should she go straight ahead, left, or right? Each corridor was pitch blac—

No, wait. There was a flickering to her left. Or was it her right? She made an L shape with her index finger and thumb like her teacher taught her to do. Yeah, her left. Most of the hallway was completely dark, but far ahead a light sputtered, spraying sparks onto the floor. She decided to go left; it was the only way that was lit up, even if only with sparks.

She slid her hand along the metal wall, frowning when she felt rusty flecks catch on her palms, which were slick with sweat. The smell of old copper and must filled her nose, and she pulled her hand away, hovering it over the surface of the wall instead.

She squinted her eyes in the dank shadows, trying vainly to see something, but all she saw was the occasional spark far ahead. Even the sound of her shoes clanking on the floor seemed to be phantom noise without her being able to see her feet as she walked.

She grinned suddenly when she remembered something. She brought one foot up and stomped down on the metal below her. The plastic of her shoe suddenly shone, the flowery pattern lighting up a flashing red. She giggled, stomping down her other foot, and watched it do the same thing. The resounding noise was frighteningly loud, but she could at least see something now.

She continued on, periodically stomping whenever the lights ran out. The floor was bathed in a pulsing crimson glow, shadows flitting away from the strobing red and exposing the rust and mold and decay of the ship. She even saw an odd, white stick lying against a wall, broken and hollow in the centre.

Her world went dark and she huffed out a breath, stopping. She stomped again and her vision returned. The flickering red made everything look grainy and stilted, as if she were watching an ancient frame-by-frame movie. She flexed her fingers in front of her face as she started forward again, watching the small digits close in an almost glitchy manner.

So consumed by the odd effect of her sneaker's flashing lights, she didn't notice the lump on the floor until her foot pressed into something squishy. She let out a short yelp, jumping back and bringing her arms up to cover her face. When nothing jumped up to attack her, she peeked through her fingers down at the lump on the floor. In the strobing red of her sneakers' light, she saw the form of a dead man. Blood smeared the walls and floor, and he looked to be missing an arm, disconnected entirely from his shoulder.

She fell back, eyes wide with horror. It was one of those monsters, those aliens, with his sallow bald skin and dead black gaze. His eyes reflected the pulsing crimson in time with her shoes, and then her world went dark again.

A high, fearful whine echoed in the hallway, deafeningly loud in the pitch black. She realised that she was the one making the noise and covered her mouth, backing into the wall. She frantically tapped her feet against the floor, trying to turn her sneakers back on, but the light never came. She was only left with the corpse of her captor, looking far more like a monster than he had when he was alive.

Forgetting about the idea of crying only being for babies, she curled up on the ground and sobbed into her hand, rocking in place. She wanted mama. Or dad. Or both of them. Even Miss R., her school teacher, would do. But none of them showed up, and she was alone.

She remembered disjointed images of the last time she'd seen her parents—quick, vivid snapshots of her mother grabbing the baseball bat in the kitchen and slamming it into one of the aliens that had knocked down their front door. Or her father fighting with another monster who held a knife at his throat. She remembered a horribly tight grip on her arm, hard enough that she had felt the bone in her shoulder pop. Being shoved into a cramped shuttle with other people who had rags tied around their wrists. The sound of two gunshots ringing out in the night before the vehicle's door closed.

Her daddy would come get her and bring her home. He worked for the Alliance, and always knew what to do when something went wrong. Then mama would clean her cuts and bring her soup and watch movies with her and check under the bed for monsters before she went to sleep.

She sniffed, wiping at her nose. Her elbow throbbed painfully at her, and she clenched her teeth to keep from crying louder. Her sobs sounded even worse out in the barren hallway, in the pitch black of this empty ship, as if ghosts were moaning through the walls at her from all directions.

But the moaning didn't stop, even as she grit her teeth and pressed her tongue hard to the roof of her mouth. Then she realised that the sound was coming from beside her.

She looked over at the dead alien, and saw between the distant flash of white sparks that he was beginning to move. His body was convulsing on the floor, and a low gurgling came from a closed mouth. She scooted back on her bum, shivering and staring at the not-so-dead man.

A loud moan echoed in the hallway, and she covered her mouth to keep from screaming. She stomped her feet again, trying desperately to see what was happening, and her shoes finally turned back on with a particularly forceful stomp. Seeing the twisted corpse in front of her, she decided that maybe light wasn't as precious as she'd thought.

His skin was bubbling, turning a dark, angry red. As he twisted and writhed on the floor, she watched his eyes begin to glow. Dim at first, but the light slowly became brighter. They pulsed and flashed, an image intensified by her strobing sneakers, and turned a pale blue, shining strongly enough to cut through the shadows. She screamed and covered her eyes, seeing the monster rise awkwardly on broken legs, uncaring of the subtle snaps and rips that could be heard from his thighs.

The monster moaned again, skin still moving faintly, and looked down at her. He was swaying in place, and the breath blew out of slit nostrils with a wet heave. Blood dripped from the stump of his right shoulder and made soft splatters on the metal deck, but he seemed unaware of his fatal injuries. The whole front of him was covered in glowing blue wires, organic circuitry cutting jagged lines through his distended skin. His belly looked swollen and pale, and his clothing hung in bloody tatters off his bulbous body.

She looked up to his face, trembling. He seemed to only be watching her, as if unsure how to proceed in his new deathly state. The skin of his face seemed loose and stretched, hanging limply off of sharp cheekbones. Wrinkles formed on his forehead and jowls, and his head sported numerous popped blisters, which all leaked puss and black fluid. Behind his grotesque features sat massive red boils on his shoulders, pressing into the back of his skull and making him hunch forward. Some still bubbled and rippled faintly, not yet fully grown.

A whimper escaped her lips, and the monster cocked its head at her, almost bird-like in the movement. Then he screeched, loud and long, and she covered her ears in fright.

The monster took a lumbering step forward, snapped bones creaking. One pierced through the flesh of his thigh, spraying blood and ichor onto the floor and her. It splattered down her clothes and face, some even coating her arms and hair. This finally snapped her out of her frozen state, and she scrambled back, screaming. The light from her sneakers had finally gone out, and now all she could see was the malevolent glowing of his four eyes, and the occasional distant spark casting a gruesome silhouette of the monster's disfigured body.

She jumped up and darted back the way she came, hearing the heavy fall of the monster's footsteps behind her, and the sound his laboured, uneven breathing filling the rusty corridor. He was frighteningly close to her, and she felt the swipe of a hand behind her, the movement rustling her sweaty, goopy hair. It howled once more, making her jump and stumble forward. She quickly regained her balance and ran on, passing the hallway that held her cell and into the pitch black of another narrow corridor.

Terror consumed her, gripping her chest like a vise. Its footsteps were closer now, the monster's relentless chase gaining on her. Even with its wheezing breath and broken, injured body, it was still faster than her. Her sneakers lit up again, throwing crimson pulses at the oily shadows.

Sweat dripped into her eyes, stinging and salty. A ghostly shriek sounded behind her, nearly crippling her with fear. But her brain had shut down—she didn't think about her mom and dad, or Miss R., or her ruined clothes or that she was hungry and had to pee. It only told her to run. Thoughts of being caught, of being killed, filled her mind in a way she didn't understand, and that frightened her even more.

Something caught her shoe and she toppled over, her chin slamming into the grimy metal of the floor hard enough to split the skin. She looked back in horror, seeing another batarian in the flashing light. It was covered in bullet holes, blood collecting in a thick pool around its prone body. She saw the monster stop in front of the corpse, just feet away from her, its legs crunching with the sudden hault. It stared down at the dead alien, cocking its head again in that eery, avian way. Wet breath coughed out of its open maw, its few teeth blackened and tongue covered in blisters. With a huff, it knelt down next to the dead man, sniffing at the gored corpse. The monster smacked its loose lips, and its hand reached out and grabbed at the body's shoulder. It yanked upwards, hard, and the limb tore free with a spraying crunch, sending blood and bits of bone in every direction.

She yelped in horror, but the monster took no notice of her; its attention was focused solely on the arm it held in its boiled palm. It bent its head low and sunk its teeth into the limp flesh, making a faint sound of satisfaction as it began to eat.

She stared in terrified awe for a moment before realising that she was no longer being attacked, and jumped up with a jolt. Checking over her shoulder and making sure the monster still wasn't looking at her, she took off again, her breath sobbing out of her in messy relief.

She ran about three times the length of her house before finally stopping, so out of breath and so terrified she couldn't move on. Collapsing on the ground, she curled into a ball and wept into her hand, not caring that it smelled like dirt and sweat and blood. She was still alive, and the monster wasn't chasing her.

It had looked like something out of a horror movie, the really scary ones she wasn't allowed to watch. But monsters weren't supposed to be real; they were make-believe, her dad had told her a thousand times, and he was never wrong.

Maybe it was a dream, and she would wake up in bed and then go into her parents' bedroom and crawl under their blanket and sleep with them. You were supposed to pinch yourself to wake up, and she grabbed a small piece of skin on her arm and gave it a hard squeeze.

"Ow!" she yelped, but closed her eyes and waited. She counted to five-Mississippi and then opened her eyes again, hoping desperately to see the purple walls of her bedroom. But all she saw was rust and black.

She began to tremble, and curled in on herself more tightly, rocking on the floor. She sniffled, backing up against the wall. "I wanna go home," she whispered. "I wanna go home."

Something rang out, far off in the distance. It sounded almost like popcorn, a quick burst of stutters. She lifted her head, peering through tears down the hallway. The end of the corridor was lit up with flashes of bright light, accompanied by more popcorn sounds. She realised that it was gunfire. Which meant alive people!

Bracing her hands under her, she shakily got to her feet, wiping at her eyes. Wet smeared across her face, tears and grime and blood, but she was too focused on the noise and light to care. She swore she even heard speaking, though she couldn't make out what was being said. She began to creep forward, silent tip-toes all the way to the corner of the hallway. The gunfire got louder, and she peered around the edge of the corner.

Four batarians were firing at something she couldn't see. The shadows were washed away in a grisly bath of muzzle flare, with bullet shells littering the ground and making soft tinkling sounds when they hit the floor, like broken glass. They were all yelling at one another in that odd, guttural language she couldn't understand. Over the loud staccato of gunfire, she could hear the sounds of moans and wheezes, deeper than the noises the monster had been making.

She saw one batarian stagger back as something wrapped itself around his body, its limbs long and thin and covered in the same blue wiring as the monster. The others fell back, forgetting about their friend, and she finally saw beyond them.

The end of the hallway was no longer there; she could see the endless dark of space, with dots of light twinkling from distant stars. A massive hole in the frigate had been ripped wide open, and the only thing saving them from being sucked into space was the ship's kinetic barriers, which shone a silvery purple over the hole. The large opening also showcased another ship floating alongside them, its alien airlock haphazardly joined with the blown-out part of the hallway, and out came hundreds of glowing monsters.

They were rail thin and their skin smooth, running tipsily on long, wired legs. They looked almost synthetic in design, with glowing ports covering their chests and abdomen. And they were all running straight for the batarians and her.

She darted away in a random direction, fleeing down a narrow break-off of the hallway, one she hadn't even noticed just moments before. She shoved herself into a thin crevice between two metal plates on the wall, hoping no one saw her. To her relief, she heard the other monsters chase after the batarians, leaving her in their deafeningly silent wake.

But she could also hear screaming—the screams of other people, the humans she'd seen in the shuttle—as if from a great distance, their fearful screeches gently vibrating throughout the walls of the ship. She could hear it coming from below her feet, and she shoved herself deeper into the split.

Her arm pressed against a sharp piece of metal, its rusty edge poking into her forearm. She squirmed, trying to get into a more comfortable position, when she heard wheezing. She stopped moving and held her breath.

The noise was still there, and she could hear snuffling, as if the creature were searching for her scent. Claws scraped against old metal, looking for her. Her whole body tensed, waiting for the monster to pass.

A skeletal head entered her narrowed line of sight, covered in tight grey skin and pulsing blue lines, like electric veins. The creature sniffed again, lifting its head in the air, waiting.

She clenched her teeth, feeling her chest tighten painfully as she held her breath. The beat of her heart was painfully loud in her ears. She swallowed.

The monster turned its head almost leisurely towards her, glowing features pulsing in the shadows. Its eyes, hollowed and sunken, illuminated a stark blue, met her own. It clacked its teeth together once, then twice, head twitching and dead eyes searching her face. Its chest heaved with rattling breath, ribs pressing against its tight flesh. Then the creatures eyes widened, as if realising what it was looking at, and shrieked.

It dove towards her, long fingers scrabbling for purchase as its thin body tried to shove its way into the crevice she hid in. She kicked out a foot, slamming it into the monster's chest and sending it stumbling back. She crammed herself farther into the slit, feeling the sharp piece of metal slice through the skin of her arm.

The creature quickly recovered, extending its claws once more and grabbing a bony fistful of her shirt. It yanked forward, pulling her out of her hiding place and sending her tumbling to the ground. She screamed and sobbed, throwing out her arms in a vain attempt to injure it, but any punches she landed didn't seem to affect the monster past the occasional grunt.

It hauled her to her feet, arms holding her in an implacable grip, and threw her over its shoulder. She wailed and kicked, thrashing in its arms as it began moving forward. Its gait was stilted and awkward, and she bounced up and down on the creature's shoulder as it headed to its destination.

She saw the batarians in the distance, guns still flashing, and she waved her arms. "Help! Help help, _please!"_

One looked up and met her eyes, his own burning with fear. He started after her, looking almost urgent as he stepped away from the battle. Then, as if to prove their fighting futile, his head burst in a shower of gore as a monster shoved a clawed hand through his face, and he fell limply to the ground.

She screamed again, feeling the monster's claws dig hard into her skin. Blood poured down her arm from the gash, and her head felt woozy. Tears filled her eyes and everything was washed to a rusty, dank blur. The monster took little notice in her terror, moving to the end of the hallway in a business-like fashion. She began to see purple shimmers in her watered vision.

She blinked, raising her head. They were no longer in the hallway—its dark expanse seemed unbearably far away. Now all she could see were stars, and a tunnel of atmospheric barriers protecting them from the vacuum of space.

The monster was walking on a slim bridge, connecting the broken slaver ship to something so immense that she could only see a smooth dark carapace at the other end, its body blocking out suns. She craned her neck over her shoulder, trying to see what the other ship was.

The ship looked back at her with a single, baleful red eye. Then she saw no more as they entered the bowels of what was surely an angry god.


End file.
